VA+RI=PJ

Altotonga, Mexico -- I'm still recovering from a very long week(end). It's been an interesting week full of developments. And Thursday night, one of the youth stayed the night at my apartment so that we could be at Chris's house at 3:15am. She is from a little rancho that obviously no buses run at the hour.

I was working on a video for my ma because it was going to be her birthday. So I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep before we crammed into Chris's car and took the trip to Mexico City.

The youth conference was great. It's definitely one of the best conferences I've ever been to. There were youth pastors and leaders there that are dedicated and who want to talk to you and answer your questions. Among the speakers were Abel Lopez, Jeffrey de Leon, Mike Richards, Emmanuel Espinosa, Pablo Delgado, Paco Palafox and many more. It was a great weekend-- I think the youth learned a lot, grew and had a lot of fun in the process. They were talking all weekend about the workshops that they enjoyed as well as the group times. This was very good for them.

Friday night we got to sleep around 11pm. Back up at 7 on Saturday and thus began another day. We went to the Rojo concert that night-- Rojo is a big name in Christian Spanish music. We got back Altotonga on Sunday morning at like 3:20am. One of my favorite workshops that I went to was one taught by Abel Lopez. It was especially for those who had fewer than 2 years in the youth ministry. I had originally planned to go to another one, but I decided to change to this one and was glad I did. It was so practical! It was about basics of running a youth ministry-- how to choose leaders, monthly scheduling and yearly scheduling and how to plan events. I took about 6 pages of notes. Of course, it was a small notebook, but still- 6 pages!

The theme of the conference was Verdad Absoluta + Relacion Intencional = Pastorea Juvenil-- which means Absolute truths + Intentional Relationships= Youth Pastorship. And everything had to do with those two things. We had the cd recordings of the programs, so I plan on digging into the rest that I didn't get to go to this week.

Well, this week is somewhat normal!! I'm going to be focusing this week on visiting college-age kids in the neighbor and I'm doing some studies on leadership and ministry in certain areas. So, between that and everything else that I work on during the week, it'll be good.Well, until next week, friends. I have a lot to do!!! Take care!